You can't do that!"

This is something I've heard for most of my life.... as a challenge. As a Survival Monkey member I'll share some of what I've learned and hope others will too. It feels good to answer folks who tell you that you can't do something with ...

"No, you can't do it."

It all started when Dad told me he could boil water in a paper cup... and did! It's been a long and interesting journey since then, sometimes a little scary, but always fun.

that's great too bad I can't share most of what I know is not earth or people friendly other than my building skills.

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I know the feeling. Lots of chemistry experiments I can't share here. ;-)

Then there are things like this:
My hands are too big to do it the way I originally saw it demonstrated. (He could see the sights with his thumb on the back of the slide.) And it was only demonstrated after I had stopped the guy from firing with his thumb there, being absolutely sure that it would rip the thumb right off.

You can do this. Maybe you shouldn't, and I've only tried it on this Glock 17, and wouldn't recommend it on anything of larger caliber, but it won't rip your thumb off.

Why was this guy shooting like this? I didn't ask. When would it be useful? Any time you don't want to leave a fired casing behind, or in the case of smaller caliber suppressed semi-autos, when you want them to not make any noise from the motion of the action...and not leave a casing behind.

Spent most of my life hearing "You can't do that." Over, Under, Around or blow the door off and go straight through I will find a way to do what "I can't do" ! LOL I have learned along the way though...... That just because you can do something doesn't always mean you should do it

You can do this. Maybe you shouldn't, and I've only tried it on this Glock 17, and wouldn't recommend it on anything of larger caliber, but it won't rip your thumb off.

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LOL! I saw the picture and immediately thought.... You can't do that.

There are many times I think that. Maybe it is because we are taught how to do things and fail to think outside the box or something. When people pass down how to's from the past, often we fail to consider the improvements objects have had since the how to was developed.

You Can stop a 1911 .45 or 9mm with your thumb, just make sure to watch for sharp corners and edges or you'll get bloody quick! We used to practice with the various suppressed pistols we carried, and your correct, it dosnt eject the brass and at least on the 1911, makes them extremely quiet when suppressed! The Beretta and Glock were not quite as quiet as the 1911s but unless some one was right on top of you, the chance of having the shot heard was minimal!
We did have .22 cal 1911s suppressed, those were awesomeness in your hand, actually better then the Ruger MK-II series which I always loved!

Awaken Cold Iron, Awaken!

You may talk o’ gin and beer
When you’re quartered safe out ’ere,
An’ you’re sent to penny-fights an’ Aldershot it;
But when it comes to slaughter
You will do your work on water,
An’ you’ll lick the bloomin’ boots of ’im that’s got it.

Full disclosure: I'm a member of "the gun culture," I was born into it, so lots of firearm related things fascinate me. Being a retired Marine, I also have an interest in military history. These interests met in a discussion of 5.56mm NATO ammo and the AK47 and/or SKS during the Vietnam War. Spider holes, tunnels, friendly fire, no Marine left behind... this all was spinning in my head and I had to know.

But "you can't do that!" "You can't shoot 5.56mm NATO ammo in an SKS or an AK47 chambered for 7.62x39mm."

(trying to do this on a 3g connection, posting pictures from my phone and text from the laptop...I almost can't do that! BUT thanks to Survival Monkey powers, I can see my draft text on the phone before I post. That's awesome! ...and somehow disturbing. Site support tonight is priceless! THANK YOU!)

I'll just have to leave the double picture there on the last post. Ya'll would have been laughing at me holding my phone up in the air to try to get the picture to download quicker. It did help, I swear it did!

You can shoot 5.56/223 in a 7.62x39 AK/SKS. I've been doing it for years as a demo for Marines. With a chrome-lined chamber and barrel it has done no damage shooting brass and steel case ammo. They usually bulge at the web and blow out the neck to .30 caliber as you'd expect, but sometimes rupture. No worries with a chrome-lined chamber. (The test rifle has NEVER been cleaned and shoots 2" groups at 50yards.) I can fairly reliably hit a 20"x20" target at 25 yards with 5.56/.223 range pick-up ammo. Not bad considering that the bullet is .090" smaller than the bore.

Imagine the morale destroying effect of a friendly fire after-action-report. If the wound was enough to disable the target, the enemy had removed 2-3 fighters with just a single shot. The effect on morale would have been even more devastating.

I heard that said, but I thought it was about firing a 7.62x51 Nato in a 7.62x54r chambered rifle, they are pretty close, a 7.62x54 tapers more and will bulge the Nato ahead of the rim.. Are you talking about tossing a .224" dia bullet down a .312" bore dia barrel? It might go but it will have to rattle down. That's a .090" difference

That's four wet weekly newspapers, tightly wrapped with tape. (Yes, I can test fire rifles in my living room!) About 2 1/2 inch diameter. Penetration was almost exactly half that diameter, with zero bullet deformation. Curiously, there was rifling clearly engraved into the copper jacket. This was intermittent, and clearly the result of an under-size projectile wandering down a larger diameter bore.

The EmmaGee's are filling the night with their music here! No more motivational sound for an old Marine than talking guns! I can identify the experienced gunners by their consistent 3-4 round burst. I have a connection with them as they silently say the words "three round burst...(breathe)... three round burst."

There was an acronym or a chant for just about everything we did in the Marine Corps. There are a dozen poor Comm Officers, God bless 'em, who will have recurring nightmares until they die, hearing me asking "What happens when the power goes off?"

OUCH! That's gonna leave a scar! That's the tip of the bullet peeking out of page 5 of the local section. In a pinch, the shot would be made from cover as the target passed. Tonight the fired case fell out easily. Sometimes they will stick in the chamber.
Any way you look at this, it is nasty, life-or-death battle.

And here are a few of those "you shouldn't do that"...or maybe "you can do that once."

From left to right. .300 Savage fired in .300 Win Mag. .300 Win Mag fired in .300 Weatherby Mag, and two .40 S&W cases that were fired in .45 ACP chambers, with different case splits.

The lower cartridge case is a .32 H&R magnum that I had loaded with buck shot (one 00 buck driven into the case neck with a mallet and lubed with Alox. This load, and scads of .32 S&W Long (and .32 ACP) were fired in 7.62x28 Nagant revolvers when no correct ammo was available. The cases obviously swelled, but the stuff shot pretty well.

I acquired the .30 Rimfire 1872 Marlin XXX Standard pocket revolver on a bet that I couldn't make ammo for it in six months. I think it took two weeks of evenings, with test firing starting on the second or third day. The reloadable cartridge uses a pressed in .22 short case as the primer. This leaves sufficient volume for 5gr (by weight) of FFFFG black powder under a .286 diameter heeled bullet lubed with JPW. It's great fun to shoot, but must be thoroughly cleaned after each outing. With a small set of punches I can reload the .22 Hornet based cartridges on the range.
Good thing the bet wasn't that I couldn't build a gun from a screen door or something....

I acquired the .30 Rimfire 1872 Marlin XXX Standard pocket revolver on a bet that I couldn't make ammo for it in six months. I think it took two weeks of evenings, with test firing starting on the second or third day. The reloadable cartridge uses a pressed in .22 short case as the primer. This leaves sufficient volume for 5gr (by weight) of FFFFG black powder under a .286 diameter heeled bullet lubed with JPW. It's great fun to shoot, but must be thoroughly cleaned after each outing. With a small set of punches I can reload the .22 Hornet based cartridges on the range.
Good thing the bet wasn't that I couldn't build a gun from a screen door or something....

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Very cool! I love oddball cartridges. I've done conversions of one type brass to a different caliber, but nothing this interesting!

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